Practical advice on how to deal with a real staff bully

In the opening scenes of the movie The Karate Kid, teenager Daniel LaRusso is bullied repeatedly by Johnny Lawrence and his gang from the Cobra Kai dojo. One day, Mr. Miyagi sees Daniel getting beat up, and intercedes on his behalf. Miyagi preaches restraint and compassion, but those attributes are considered by Johnny and his sensei Kreese as signs of weakness, not strength. As moviegoers, we understand Miyagi’s reasons to take the “high road” but–deep down inside–we really want to see Daniel kick some ass. Of course, Hollywood knows this and creates a story where Johnny “forces” Daniel into beating him.

We wrap up this week’s posts on bullies with a discussion on common situations involving bullies that occur in the workplace and how to handle them. In general, when dealing with a staff member who is a bully, you should try to practice the Miyagi method of restraint and compassion. First, try to understand what is causing the bullying behavior. Observe whether it’s happening only to you or to other associates. If no one else seems to be having a problem, then you should evaluate your own behavior to determine if that is contributing the problem. If others are also feeling bullied, then you know it’s not personal.

Second, if this is a general problem, try to identify the specific incidents that are “bullying” and address the issues directly. In short, you want to try to fix the issue, not the person. Let me give you some examples. At a law firm, one legal secretary typically supports anywhere between two to four attorneys. Some secretaries support both associates and partners. In this hypo, you are an entry-level associate sharing your secretary, Adrian, with a senior associate and a partner. Adrian always puts off your work for last, giving priority to the partner and the other associate. This is a huge problem when you have time-sensitive tasks. When you attempt to get a status update on your work, Adrian looks at you peevishly and replies, “I’m working on a number of other things right now. I’ll get to your stuff later.” Clearly, Adrian is placing you at the bottom of his list of priorities. You can either make this into something personal, and get into an argument with Adrian. Or, you can separate the issue (skewed prioritization of work) from the person (Adrian is mean and he treats me like an afterthought).

Here’s another example. Often, you are staffed as an associate on a case with one or more partners. The legal team may be comprised of numerous attorneys, all of whom have different secretaries. So when a partner asks you to do something, and there is some secretarial work attached to the task, do you ask your own secretary to do it, or do you instruct the partner’s secretary to do it? What do you do if your secretary tells you that it’s really the partner’s project, so it’s the partner’s secretary that is responsible for it? What if you then go to the partner’s secretary and he says, sorry but I don’t take orders from you because I already support three attorneys and you aren’t one of them?

Finally, what do you do with the secretary or paralegal that gets in your face, openly questioning or criticizing your way of doing things?

These situations happen frequently in the law firm environment, and how you handle them can very well determine your own image at the firm, and how far you’ll go. Here are some solutions to the above problems.

The “you are last priority” staff member — An effective way to deal with this is to provide firm deadlines for your projects. Also, make it clear if you need something by a certain time, and make it understood why you need it by that time. In other words, if you tell your secretary that you need a brief editing by noon, your secretary may think it’s an arbitrary internal deadline. On the other hand, if you work in California, and you say, “I need this brief edited by noon because partner X needs to look at it one more time and it needs to be e-mailed to local counsel in New York by 1 p.m. because of the three hour time difference and the court closes at 5 p.m. EST” you will usually get the desired response. For truly uncooperative staff, you may need to pin them down and extract a promise that the work will be done by the deadline.

The “pass the hot potato” secretary — Whether a job is for the partner’s secretary or your secretary depends on a number of factors. First, there is usually a secretary that is assigned to be the case secretary, someone who manages the case file and is generally responsible for it. That may be the partner’s secretary or yours, depending on your level of involvement in the case and secretarial workload issues. Second, who does the work may very well depend on who happens to have the time, especially if it’s a rush project. Sometimes, staff are overwhelmed with requests coming from multiple directions, so you need to be sensitive to that. Third, figure out whether the task is really something that the partner directly instructed to be done, or whether it’s something that you independently believe needs to be done. All of these factors may help you figure out who is the person suited to the task. If you get “push back” from a partner’s secretary, after considering all the factors, a tip that helps is to say, “Partner X instructed me to tell you to do this.” In other words, it’s not me (the associate) giving you work; I’m just the messenger and if you have a problem with it, deal with Partner X. If it’s your own secretary telling you no, you need to impress upon him why he’s the proper person to do the job.

The “openly critical” staff member — Generally, it’s best to resolve these issues in private. This is the hardest because it feels the most personal. You don’t want to have a staff member sully your reputation within the firm, so the temptation is to respond publicly. The best way to handle these situations is to call the staff member into your office for a closed door meeting. Sometimes, these disagreements can be discussed without the risk of public humiliation on either side. If that doesn’t work, it may be the case that you will have to get the office administrator or HR involved. If it’s possible not to have to work with that individual, avoidance is also a possibility. As a last resort (and I mean AS A LAST RESORT), if the staff member is simply out of control, throwing diatribes and verbally abusing you constantly, and none of the above methods work or the firm implicitly condones the behavior or chooses not to do anything about it, go ahead and fight back. Sadly, sometimes you have to show power, authority, and a backbone because nothing else works.